


Warlock

by wisdomofthesea



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Betrayal, Diplomatic Hawke, Gen, Hawke gives Isabela to the Qunari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisdomofthesea/pseuds/wisdomofthesea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one is more disillusioned with Hawke than Hawke is, especially after he let the Arishok take Isabela without a fight. Fenris thinks Hawke is being too hard on himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warlock

The Qunari were gone, and Isabela with them.  
  
Hawke shook hands with every Hightown resident. Meredith gave him a title and the vague promise of an inaugural banquet, eyeing Hawke’s staff distastefully all the while. Hawke hadn’t used it in front of Kirkwall’s lords and ladies, so while Meredith surely knew he was an apostate, a recently-ascended Champion was untouchable.  
  
_Politicking_ , he thought, with no small measure of disgust. He was safe from the Circle for now, too beloved by Kirkwall to be carted off to the Gallows. Garrett Hawke was the hero who brought safety and justice to the city, and all it cost him was a friend’s loyalty.  
  
_“Hawke, you bastard!”_  
  
Isabela herself had protected half of Hightown from bands of Invisible Sisters and pretenders to the guard. Yet for giving her up, Hawke received a title and gifts from adoring fans looking to curry favor. After the first well-meant bouquet of lilies, he’d refused all flowers on principle, passing them on to wilt at the base of the Chantry’s memorial wall. Most of the gifts were food, including a selection of pungent Orlesian cheeses and spiced Antivan sausages. A basket signed _From a Friend_ was full of red apples which all proved rotten within.  
  
Two dozen well-bred families with available young ladies had sent offers of courtship, less appealing than the apples. His first thought on reading them was how thrilled Mother would have been. She would’ve loved this—would’ve pored over every girl’s references, checking for Templar relatives and family reputation outside the city and how they felt about mabari. She would’ve asked servants about their character, and invited the girls and their parents over for four-course dinners so she could properly vet them.  
  
(Bethany, too, would’ve adored the process. She’d always wanted a sister, and if Hawke was inclined to marry one of these girls he would’ve picked whomever she liked best. He could love anyone Bethany loved—Bethany, with her open heart and sweet smile and ready trust. The details of her face were already blurring away in his memory. He missed her fiercely, but thank the Maker she never lived in Kirkwall. It would have torn her to shreds.)  
  
And _Isabela’s_ comments! Varric dealt in secrets and Aveline knew the entire city by name, but Isabela knew _people_. She’d know which girls were pretty enough to flirt drinks out of Corff, and which ones were regular clients at the Rose, and how adventurous they were there. Isabela would’ve had almost as much fun with this as Mother.  
  
As it stood, Hawke had no one to share these letters with. He would politely decline each one. He would continue, as he had so many times before—after Father, and Lothering, and Bethany, and Carver. So he was no longer anyone’s son or brother, no longer Isabela’s _sweet thing_. Fine. If Kirkwall needed a Champion, he could be one.  
  
In the antechamber, the door opened and shut with an abrupt slam. Bodahn called out from the main hall. “Messere! A visitor!”  
  
Hawke rose from the desk, where he’d been staring at a line of Anders’ manifesto for the last half hour. _The oppression of mages stems from the fears of men, not the will of the Maker._ Hawke thought Anders might have it wrong. The Chantry’s argument was flawed, yes, but the fears of men may well be justified. There were few enough mages Hawke trusted.  
  
At this point, his own name didn’t make the list.  
  
He approached the doorway wearily. “If it’s more apples, Bodahn, just send them to Gamlen or something. I think I’m off fruit for a whi—”  
  
But it was Fenris who strode into the library, not his manservant. The Amell crest hung on his belt, and he still wore the red scarf on his right wrist. Hawke had not seen Fenris without either since he’d given them to him.  
  
_Of course, when I gave them to him, I expected him to stay longer than half the night. We only had the one crest._  
  
The elf’s face was set in familiar lines of neutral annoyance. “If this is a bad time, I can leave.”  
  
“No. I’m just surprised you’re here.” Merrill was angry or mourning—she’d cried when the Qunari dragged Isabela away, messy sobs that offended the nobility, and Hawke hadn’t seen her since. Aveline, too, left the Viscount’s Keep with a stiff back and a grim expression, not looking at Kirkwall’s new Champion. Varric was tracking the dreadnought with a coastline of connections spanning Ostwick to Par Vollen, but he wouldn’t speak with Hawke about it. Anders was too busy to visit, patching up people who’d been caught in the Qunari’s crossfire. And Fenris—  
  
Well. Fenris was _here_. “No one has seen you in a week. They wanted me to check on you.” He paused. “ _I_ wanted to check on you.”  
  
“Ah.” Just like after Mother died, but with less sympathy. “Well, you’ve found me.”  
  
“So I have.”  
  
An overlong pause—but they were both good at silence, weren’t they? Hawke beckoned Fenris into the library and collapsed in one of the chairs before the fireplace. Fenris stood, black brows drawn low over olive eyes, and waited.  
  
Fenris was better at silence. “I didn’t want to do it,” Hawke said finally. His words fell like a single copper into a beggar’s empty cup—a meaningless gesture, too cheap to make a difference. “She stole the Tome of Koslun. What was I supposed to do, kill the entire Qunari delegation? Fight the Arishok myself?”  
  
_That_ had been the real ultimatum: turn over Isabela, or duel the Arishok to the death. A duel in single combat, because the Arishok found Hawke worthy for reporting a missing patrol and acknowledging Qunari customs. _Basalit-an_ , perhaps, but Hawke was no _viddathari_ —he believed in the Maker, and social mobility, and the merits of individual identity. He understood some parts of the Qun, but did not want to follow it. The cost was too high.  
  
But he also didn’t want to die. The Arishok offered the duel as if it were a fair fight—but Hawke was half the warlord’s size. The Arishok held a battleaxe and a greatsword as easily as Hawke held cutlery. Hawke had magic and wielded it well, but there was no spell to stop a determined giant from running him through with a cleaver as long as Hawke was tall.  
  
“She should not have expected that her actions would have no consequences. You made the rational choice, Hawke.”  
  
“Rational!” Hawke barked a bitter laugh. “Maybe. But I promised to help her. I promised she could keep the relic to save her life. And I—she came back to _help_ , and _I_ —”  
  
“—was unfairly left with an impossible decision. One with which you saved dozens of people, if not the entire city of Kirkwall.”  
  
What did Kirkwall matter? Kirkwall had stolen his mother and nearly killed him a few dozen times. Hawke didn’t give a damn about Kirkwall. The only thing he wanted to save now was the little makeshift family he still had, and even that was too fragile. The way Merrill had looked at him after the Qunari left—the way Aveline _hadn’t_.  
  
“But now you’re all wondering, aren’t you?” he said, and his voice was all bitterness. Hawke leaned back in the chair like a king holding an audience. “What I’ll do if the Templars catch up with Anders. If Danarius comes for you.”  
  
The elf stiffened. He did not meet Hawke’s eyes. “I do not wonder. I know what you would do.”  
  
Hawke studied the furrow of Fenris’ brow, the gauntleted fingers playing across the red silk tied to his wrist. “By all means, tell me.”  
  
“If Templars attempted to take the abomination to the Circle, you would foolishly rush in to stop them. You’d likely be captured yourself in the process, though I’ve no doubt Varric would bail you both out within a day.”  
  
Hawke laughed, no joy in the sound. He’d once thought that of himself—that he would sacrifice himself to keep his friends safe, after he couldn’t do so for his family. He’d failed the first time he was tested. What was the price to break Anders’ confidence? A phylactery with Hawke’s own name on it?  
  
“As for Danarius…” Fenris looked at him now, his gaze serious and even. “You helped me find Hadriana. I do not doubt you would help if my former master came for me.”  
  
Fenris was right, of course. If Danarius offered to duel for Fenris’ freedom, Hawke would not hesitate, no matter what weapons the magister chose. The only thing that could stop him from personally killing Danarius was if Fenris wanted to land the final blow.  
  
“You are the best man I have ever known, Hawke. Let alone the best mage.”  
  
_Mage._ Such a weighted word, when Father said it with careful pride and Bethany only whispered it, timid and ashamed. Anders spoke of mages the way another might talk about an orphaned kitten in need of protection. Fenris normally spat the word—as though the taste of it in his mouth was too loathsome to bear—but now it was praise, and that seemed worse.  
  
Malcolm Hawke was the best man and the best mage Garrett had ever known. Honorable, never succumbing to demons, never performing blood magic, never breaking his word. _My magic will serve that which is best in me, not that which is most base._  
  
When Malcolm died, his son inherited his staff and his name—Hawke, without a first name, said by neighbors with a raised hand and a smile, the expectation of help freely given and the anticipation of favors freely returned. And Garrett had taken the mantle just as he’d accepted being the Champion of Kirkwall, helping Old Barlin lay traps and mediating between squabbling townsfolk. Lothering needed a Hawke, needed an odd-jobsman who smiled easily and didn’t ask for much, and Garrett could do that so long as Mother and the twins were safe and fed and happy at the end of the day.  
  
He’s used no magic to betray Isabela, but giving her up—did that make him any better than a maleficar? Malcolm had never broken a promise—not to Leandra when they’d eloped, not to his children when he said they would be safe from Templars so long as he drew breath. But Father’s breath was stilled beneath six feet of Fereldan soil, and his wife and the twins were gone too, ash and bone all that remained. Lothering was so long ago; _that_ Garrett Hawke seemed an entirely different person from the Champion of Kirkwall, who might be more Free Marcher than Fereldan now. Garrett had only the staff and the name, and the empty estate he’d tried to fill with his own false family—and now there was even less than the week before.  
  
Fenris read the pained lines of Hawke’s face more easily than he could read a line of text. “If you’re concerned about her, I would not be surprised if she finds some way to escape the Qunari. This _is_ Isabela, after all.”  
  
It _was_ Isabela—and how long after her escape would Hawke wake to find the sharpest blade in Llomerryn at his neck? It was not a way he’d hoped to wake up with her. “What do the Qunari do to people like her?”  
  
Fenris’ hesitation was just a moment too long. Hawke had suspected—now he did not want to know. It was like being hit by lightning, a sharp pain lancing right through his heart. He felt as dizzy as when he’d realized Carver had contracted the taint in the Deep Roads. _Kinslayer_ , he’d thought numbly, as they walked away from his brother’s body. _I am a kinslayer._ This was just as bad.  
  
“Never mind.” After a long pause, he said, “We slept together once.” Fenris’ hand stilled on the scarf, and his expression became inscrutable as suddenly as a candle being blown out. Looking at him was trying to read a book in the ensuing dark. “It was… before you. Just for fun, blowing off steam. Rutting, as she said. Call it what you like.” Hawke cleared his throat. “I hoped she would stay the night. She said we were just using each other, and that was all it was, and she left.”  
  
Isabela in bed was just like Isabela in battle—dancing away the moment things grew too serious, vanishing into the darkness when it suited her. Loving her was like trying to catch one of her bottled black powder clouds in his hand. Hawke had spent enough of his life holding onto people who did not stay, watching them slip through useless fingers like so much smoke.  
  
Fenris spoke carefully, tendons taut as though it took every muscle to control his tone. He did not look at Hawke when he spoke. “ _Were_ you just using each other?”  
  
“I don’t know. I didn’t think so, then. But she didn’t want anything, so I… thought I would find someone who did.” Fenris turned his back. Hawke didn’t mind. He was used to being left by now. “I don’t _always_ make the rational choice.”  
  
“Hawke,” he said, a rough edge to his voice. “You know I did not intend… I’m sorry.”  
  
_“Do not make light of this. Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”_  
  
“I know.” Isabela had a dead husband and an abandoned lover behind her. Fenris had Danarius, and Tevinter, and the lyrium tattoos, and the missing memories. Was he really that much better, haunted by the ghosts of his family? “Fenris, I don’t mean to… I care for you, whether you’re prepared for that or not. But I will not hold it against you if you don’t feel the same way.”  
  
Fenris watched the fire. “For what it’s worth, Hawke… I regret the way I left things.”  
  
Regretted, but not enough to change. “It’s all right.” Garrett Hawke knew plenty about regret. There were many things he would change if he had the chance.  
  
Letting the Arishok take Isabela, he realized, was not one of them. Another item to add to the list of things he was not: Friend, maleficar, _viddathari_ , Fereldan, son, brother, _sweet thing_. He was not the Hawke his father had been. Not a man whose promise meant anything. Not remorseful.  
  
Hawke didn’t like the list of things he was: mage, apostate, _basalit-an_ , kinslayer, orphan, betrayer. _Hawke_ , no first name needed, because he was the only one left. Champion of Kirkwall, and he could get used to that. If the title damned him—well, he shouldn’t have taken it in the first place.

* * *

_Warlock (noun): a man who practices magic. From the Saxon wǣrloga, meaning “oath-breaker.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure about posting this one, but I _was_ sure that I was tired of editing it. Let me know what you think in the comments!


End file.
